"I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether."
--Neil Postman

3.28.2006

palmer

i hardly knew the guy but i still feel pretty sad about his death. i thought god would step in on this one and save him from the same fate as his wife jennifer that also died from an unusual cancer. it's enough to make you wonder if they hadn't been somewhere and been hit with a huge dose of radiation or something. very sad.
what do we do with a death like this? what do we do with all the unanswered prayers? i can imagine that the landing place has been knit closely together through these experiences and that alone might be worth the pain and the doubt. perhaps micah will be able to fill his father and mother's shoes in ways he would not have been otherwise. perhaps god is at work doing something else there and elsewhere.
palmer once wrote me an email--long since lost--about home church and relationships. i worried that something like a home church would piss too many people off and therefore should be avoided. he responded (and i paraphrase heavily): "i guess God picked me to do this ministry because i'm too much of an asshole to care what people think. [he really did use these words, God love him] i say if God is calling you to do something, do it and trust that he'll heal the broken hearts. Jesus' community is so messy anyway that you never know what prayer of some other hurt person you might be answering."
i'm not sure it was good advice. but i kept his words hidden and pondered them. when bread 'n' fish broke up, these words helped me believe that there was something else good out there to get involved in. and a little later, there was a beautiful little house church meeting at our house, at brant/carrie's, at sarah's apartment in worthington, at matt/andy's house. palmer had no idea--because i never told him--but his email helped allay my fears and helped that community get off the ground.
God bless him and his family.